Mentor Vs Student Built

2012 marks my 8th year of FRC involvement. I was only an FRC student for one year, my senior year in 2005. Back then, I was hesitant to post on Chief Delphi. I viewed it as a forum in which only the most well respected people posted in. I would see Paul Copioli, Andy Baker, JVN and Karthik posting and I would say to myself (and I still fell this way to an extent today) What else is there for me to say? Of my 740 CD posts, 500 of them have been since 2009. My hesitance to post in my early FRC days were mostly due to respect and a little bit of intimidation.

I think we can all agree that the internet has changed and CD hasn't been immune. I think most people fail to grasp the gravity of what they say on the Internet and how it may change the way people look at them. CD makes that a little bit worse because in many cases you're not representing yourself as much as your team.

While I think the student built vs mentor built argument will never go away, I can relate to both sides of it. In 2005, we built one of the worst robots our team had ever made. It was discouraging. Then you see a team like 67 in 2005 win; 2 Regionals, 1 Regional Chairman's Award, 1 Divisional Championship, a World Championship and the Championship Chairman's Award all in the same year. Part of you asks, 'How much the students do?" I was naive. I was angry that a team could have so much success when we were so bad. But I wasn't looking at it the right way. It's not anger, it's passion. It's fuel. It's drive. It's inspiration. Team 67 was my first experience witnessing a powerhouse team do what they do best. Inspire. I know now that 67 has a ton of student involvement, as much as my own team, and they remain one of the teams I look up to the most.

I honestly believe that there is not a single team in FIRST that is "Mentor Built." I think that term is a derogatory, blanket term used to put down teams that some people in FRC are too jealous and angry at to see the inspiration those teams provide. I've seen the term applied to 67,148, 217, 254, 1114 and most recently 175 . An identical list to one titled 'Teams I'm most Inspired By.'

I think that though one team (In this case 175) has to be thrown under the bus, overall these attacks are beneficial. It shows us that our job isn't over. There are still people out there that aren't getting the message. We need to continue to show them the inspiration these teams provide, the amazing students and mentors that run these teams and how much of a loss it would be if the "mentor built" term ever changed the way these inspirational teams operate.

-Justin

@jmontois340

Team 340 Update

I figured I'd make a short post about where we are with our robot.

Both drive trains are done, one will be our competition bot and one will be an identical practice bot. Last week, programmers finished their code for driving the robot with xbox360 controllers. This will be the first year since 2000 that our robot won't be driven by joysticks. Another cool feature is the arcade style drive. It takes a little getting used to but once you have it, you won't want to go back.

Our super structure and scoring mechanism are almost done and by the end of the day Saturday we *should* have 2 scoring robots. Our ball acquisition group is little behind but i'm sure good progress will be made on Saturday. I might make a post Saturday night with some pictures. Tweet @jmontois340 to remind me. I'll probably forget. Have a great weekend everyone.

-Justin

@jmontois340

Be Confident In What You Have

With just 13 days left in the build season there's no turning back now. What you have so far is the result of 4 weeks of hard work. Regardless of what is looks like now, be proud of your robot.

I think it's important to remember as more days go by and more and more robot pictures come out to not be discouraged. Remember what you've work so hard on. Continue to give it all the attention it deserves as you prepare for competition. If your robot is good at what it's supposed to do, you will be fine. More on that below.

We had a good discussion on our team surrounding the aspect of strategy. Strategy is my favorite aspect of FRC. I love developing robot strategy the first few days after kickoff, I love developing match strategies at competition and I love developing alliance strategies for selection and eliminations. However, we discussed that "Is finding that "Do it all" strategy that important or can you select almost anything? As long as you do it better than anyone else, will you be successful?

Take 2006 for example. There were two main scoring tasks; High goal(3pts) or low goal(1pt). The obvious main strategy most teams would choose to be successful is shooting in the upper goal. And you would make a compelling case. How many robots on Einstein scored in the low goal? But lets say for example you chose the low goal. And you were a beast at it. Would you be successful? You scored your ten pre-loaded balls in auto. every time and you scooted around the field and could harvest better then anyone else. Could you win regionals? Would you make Elims at Championship? I think you would. And I have some evidence to back my claim. Team 322 FIRE from Flint, MI was that team. They were a beast in the low goal. That year, we tried to shoot in the high goal. We weren't the best at our strategy, we didn't make eliminations at Championship. They did.

My main argument is this. Love your robot for what it is. Make it consistent at what it does and go out there with confidence and dominate. If your robot is a box on wheels, make it the best box on wheels anyone has ever seen. If you can't pick up any balls but you can shoot on the high goal in autonomous, then make it score those 2 every time and you'll be successful. Love your robot and be confident in what you have.

-Justin

jmontois340@gmail.com

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